Saudi Aramco cancels joint venture with Petronas: WSJ

Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Saudi Aramco has axed its plans for a multi-billion-dollar refining and petrochemical joint venture with Petronas in Malaysia, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed industry sources familiar with the matter.

It was not clear why Aramco had cancelled the project.

The Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) at Pengerang in Johor, Malaysia, was to have a refinery with a capacity of 300,000 barrel per day and a petrochemical complex with an output capacity of 7.7 million metric tonnes.

Other facilities at the site, which was to start operations in early 2019, included a liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification terminal.

State-owned Petronas last year sought proposals for a $7 billion loan for the project, with separate guarantees from the company and Aramco.

Last October, Petronas was reported to be considering offering Saudi Aramco a 50 percent stake in the $21 billion refining and petrochemicals project.